Picket
signs, ca. November 1976, photographer unknown
(Records of United University Professions).

Picket signs represent one of the first things that
come to mind for many people when they think about labor and labor organizations:
strikes. But walking the picket line, while one of the more visible
activities of labor unions, is only one facet of the
entire labor movement.

To fully document labor you not only need the flyers, picket signs, and photographs
of picketing that document unions' strikes, but also the meeting minutes,
membership lists, correspondence, and publications of labor organizations.
Important, also, are the records of individual workers and of social
and community groups that seek to improve the lives of workers. Some
labor records may primarily be printed documents, particularly those
documenting the internal operations of a union. But documenting labor
does not stop there. Photographs, picket signs, bumper stickers, buttons,
t-shirts, and posters are valuable artifacts that further document
the labor movement.

Vest of Kathleen Sims, Graduate Student Employees Union (GSEU), displaying the
many buttons she acquired during her involvement with GSEU (Records of GSEU).

This exhibit features the labor-related collections held in the
Archives of Public Affairs and Policy (APAP) at the
M.E. Grenander Department of Special
Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University at
Albany, State University of New York. These collections contain a range of materials,
from the most basic internal records to those that document unions' interactions with management,
the larger labor community, and the world at large. This exhibit shows the wide array of
records that labor organizations generate and the types of information that those records provide. These
records are used by historians, scholars, and others interested in the labor movement and
the labor history of New York's Capital District.